Lost in Translation
by Stylin' Breeze
Summary: In the aftermath of the Second World War, orphans Abe and Mihashi encounter a squad of American GIs near the baseball diamond they call their own. (Warning: occasional racially charged language)
1. Chapter 1

I was inspired to write this after someone said that baseball is so big in Japan that Japanese people are surprised when told it's considered America's national pastime too. So anyway, hope you enjoy!

* * *

The day began with a growl in Abe's famished stomach. An overcast sky seemed liable to break up as the day wore on, guaranteeing this August 20th would be a hot summer day in Kyoto. Takaya Abe walked with one hand over his eyes to shelter the glare breaking through the clouds. Behind him, the scrawny Ren Mihashi sulked forward, his arm pressed to his growling tummy. They would have no breakfast before they got to their destination today.

The war ended five days ago. Abe heard the announcement over a public address system sometime after it started. He didn't quite realize what was going on, having missed the introduction and confronted by the archaic language of its orator, but the reaction of the adults as the day wore on told him. The war was finally over. All the sacrifice had been in vain. Now the goal was survival, which was Abe's primary focus from day-to-day, as it had been the last two months. Part of that survival was decompressing at their favorite baseball diamond, and preparing for the day when Japan would be born anew.

16-year-old Takaya Abe and Ren Mihashi had been the battery on the Nishiura High baseball team after its inception in 1944. They competed in the national tournament for the Koshien last year but with their freshman team didn't make it. There was no tournament this year. Abe sometimes wondered if Hanshin Koshien Stadium was even still standing.

Mihashi walked with his head down as always. Abe glanced back at his partner in the task of survival. Mihashi's wealthy parents died from a stray bomb last May, while Abe's perished in firebombing around the same time. Mihashi was appropriately insecure and weak, meaning Abe had taken the job of caring for him. Despite their losses, they still attended school, still played baseball, still aimed for Koshien, until their school vanished in a puff of smoke one day in early June. Abe and Mihashi weren't there that day, having overslept in a remarkably comfortable makeshift shelter built by a probably dead homeless guy. When they arrived, their friends, teachers, and teammates were gone. They hadn't been to school since.

"Do you have the ball?" Abe asked to distract Mihashi from his panging stomach. It had been three days since they'd eaten anything. Abe was used to hunger pangs by now, but the sheltered Mihashi, albeit unintentionally, still made himself look as poorly as possible. Mihashi snapped to attention and murmured an affirmative before digging into his pocket. From it he withdrew a dirt-stained, suspiciously squishy baseball. On the day their school vanished, Mihashi found it lying by the baseball field. He saw a red splotch on it, groped it tightly, and collapsed in tears. Except when pitching, he never let go of that ball. To Abe as well, that ball was their lifeline. Even though Japan was literally in flames, even though there were rumors of an American superweapon that had destroyed Hiroshima to the west, even though there was no school, home, food, friends, family, or baseball, he knew Japan would recover. The Koshien would happen again. And when that day came, they would be ready for it. And so they continued to play, pitcher and catcher, every day.

They arrived at the empty baseball diamond carved out of an unused patch of land beside a canal. An adjacent dark three-story building missing a few bricks from the third floor stood tall and silent. No one used the field except them. The grass, once choked by daily dust and debris storms, shared color with the infield dirt. The backstop over the catcher's box arched concave from the recoil of a bomb. The lines on the infield could barely be perceived any more. To the east, a berm along the third-base line separating the diamond from the road where spectators would once sit was insipidly brown. Beyond the field along the adjacent road, a steely truss bridge, looking in good condition, spanned the canal proudly. Yet as the sun broke through a spot in the clouds, Abe noticed a glimmer of green on the outfield. Splotches of green grass could be seen on the yellowed berm too. Mihashi danced ahead of Abe to the mound, the ball in his hand. Baseball had a way of making them forget their problems but especially Mihashi. Abe grinned before he flinched. In the stuffy air, still choking from smoldering rubble and lingering dust, came a whiff of noise—voices, and they weren't Japanese.

* * *

Sgt. Bryce didn't know why his five-man squad was assigned to the bridge over this forsaken river. Supposedly it was to prevent sabotage of the remarkably intact crossing, but one would have to be stupid to commit sabotage five days after a war was over. Then again, there were a lot of stupid Japs. He sighed and pushed out his belly. This was make-work pure and simple, and they would do it like they were told to until moved somewhere else. The river underneath the bridge was brackish and still. Pvt. Letofski, a Pole from the Bronx, thought it no uglier than the Hudson but didn't say anything. Sgt. Bryce curdled the vomit that wanted to leap into his throat.

"All right," he proclaimed. "Let's see what we got. Samson, Husky, follow me." He took the corporal and Pvt. Husky of Montana over the bridge, leaving Lowell and Letofski on the south side. The scenery was banal. If Kyoto had any mountains, they couldn't see them through the haze that hovered over the war-torn horizon. Letofski spat into the dirt road, the spittle evaporating on impact. To the west stood a manmade hill blocking what appeared to be a disused baseball diamond. It made Letofski pine for home and the street diamond a block from his family's house. But that was five years ago, and he was a bit too old for that sort of thing, he figured. He wasn't going pro any time soon, so there was nothing to be envious about.

"Well, guess we should make the best of it," Lowell remarked, swinging around his Carbine. He propped himself against a row of sandbags facing the road that had been set up by either the US Army or the Japanese in preparation for an invasion. Letofski rested against the leading truss of the steel bridge.

"So, what? We just look out for some Japs and threaten to shoot?" he sarcastically asked.

"You mean like those over there?" Lowell nonchalantly pointed. Letofski jerked his head to see two scraggly Japanese teenagers in torn clothes, peeking around an inconspicuous row of barrels on the north corner of the berm near the embankment of the river. Letofski had difficulty distinguishing the pair's skin and drab clothing against the yellow surroundings; Lowell, a San Diegan, claimed that because Cali was once full of Japs, he could spot them quite easily. Letofski nevertheless readied his rifle instinctively, even though he still couldn't make out his foes' forms in the hazy morning. Seeing the rifle aimed at them, Mihashi jittered and ducked, covering his head as if hiding from a bomb. Abe knew an empty barrel wasn't going to protect them in this situation, but he still wasn't quite convinced the pale-skinned American knew where they were.

Lowell sighed at Letofski's embarrassing search and aimed his Carbine square at the one visible Jap's head. "OK, kid. Move it," he muttered. Abe backed away slowly in a crouch, finally alerting Letofski to his location. In a moment Letofski lowered his gun. "Oh my God. He's just a kid."

"That don't mean nothin'," Lowell barked. Even teenagers had been known to be a threat.

Abe froze when he noticed the soldiers' incomprehensible dialogue. At that moment the trembling Mihashi peeked open an eye and spotted Abe suddenly a distance away from him. He flinched. From the corner of his eye, Abe noticed Mihashi staring straight at him in fear. "Mihashi, don't move," he whispered.

"Abe," Mihashi whimpered. He squeezed the baseball in his hands until suddenly, perhaps fatefully, it popped up and out. The ball flew to the south between the berm and the road and landed in the open air away from the barrel. Mihashi instinctively crawled for it, right out into the open.

"Mihashi!" Abe screamed.

Across the road Lowell tensely tracked the spherical projectile with the barrel of his gun until it bounced meekly and rolled a few steps. Almost immediately the other teenager whom he had lost sight of appeared in view. Letofski merely gawked, his gun pointed toward the ground.

"Don't move!" cried Lowell as Mihashi reached for the discolored sphere. Mihashi jumped three feet into the air. His hand, initially nervously reaching for the ball, unintentionally banged it and sent it rolling across the road. Lowell and Letofski watched the spherical weapon saunter over to them until it stopped six feet away. Even at that distance, the students of America's national pastime knew what it was. Both completely forgot about Abe, who by now had also run out of cover and grabbed Mihashi. Abe pulled the shivering boy tight into his chest. Mihashi's stomach growled louder than it had before as Mihashi gawked longingly for the ball.

When he had found it on the site of the school grounds, it seemed to magically roll out of a collapsed shed and stop right in front of him. He saw the red blotch—which had long since rubbed away—and long believed it was the blood of one of his teammates. His house had burned to smithereens, the school was otherwise inaccessible. To Mihashi, that baseball and Abe were the only remnants of the life he once had. Without it, he and Abe couldn't practice. Without it, they had no mementos of their friends. Without it, Mihashi's dream of going to Koshien with Abe was null. And now two lumbering white-skinned, green-clad individuals, both muscular, well-fed, armed, and speaking an incoherent language, were eyeing his only possession as if to take it.

Lowell gazed at the ball, glancing up periodically at the two boys opposite the street. The tougher one held the scrawnier boy tightly. The pair's embrace briefly wrought a suspicion of sexual impropriety, but he dismissed it. Letofski stepped cautiously over to the baseball without Lowell's notice. By the time his squadmate realized what he was doing, Letofski was already bending down to pick up the ball.

Pvt. Letofski joined the Army in February. Still in training during Iwo Jima, he narrowly avoided the brunt of Okinawa, arriving as reinforcements in the battle's final days. He likely would have been part of the ground force in the invasion of Kyushu, the imperial nation's southernmost major isle. He hadn't experienced the terror of banzai charges and kamikaze attacks or the sickness of uncovering mass civilian suicides like Lowell and others had. He didn't know much about the horrible maltreatment of POWs. Sometimes he felt like the Japanese treatment of Americans barely differed from Anglo-Americans' treatment of "Polacks" (like him) or Italians, Jews, Mexicans, and Irishmen. America wasn't so great either. In a way, he thought he understood where the Japanese were coming from. And in that same light, he imagined how these two boys felt at this very moment, seeing scary foreigners taking over their land, their livelihood, and even their toys. It was guys like himself, he thought, who could break the cycle and move the world forward.

Abe had only one thought in mind as the slightly less burly Yankee studied their ball. If he wanted he could dash away and grab their bat: a makeshift wooden cylinder or dowel salvaged from wreckage and shaved by Abe to give it a better semblance of a bat, currently still hidden in a ditch-like crater beneath the nearby building. But that would likely just get them both killed. He would do anything to protect Mihashi, and although part of that meant protecting the object the fragile pitcher held so dear, it would not involve risking either of their lives to do so.

Abe rose slowly, pulling the shaking Mihashi up with him, his hawk eyes not redirecting from the soldiers. Letofski wrapped his fingers around the ball before noticing the change in the boys' position. Lowell reflexively aimed his rifle again while Letofski bolted upward quickly, ball in hand. And after a pause, he took one step forward.

Abe jumped, while Mihashi couldn't tremble more violently than he already was. Letofski spotted the quaking even at that distance and from that knew the scrawnier boy wasn't a threat. Clearly the more stoic one was protecting him, so as long as he gave off no signs of being a threat, he figured he would be fine. Lowell gawked, unsure what to do. His time in Okinawa told him Letofski was walking into the grim reaper's arms and yet he couldn't make a move. Letofski paused twelve feet away from the teens in the middle of the road. He knelt down, fingered the ball on the dusty street, and then propelled it along the ground toward the kids. It rolled a bumpy, mostly straight path back to its owners until gently knocking Mihashi's foot. Mihashi gazed at his prize that was once again within reach, once more forgetting the noises from his stomach.

Lowell squinted as the sun's promised appearance on the cloudy day finally seemed more imminent, the change in light snapping him out of his awe. "Letofski, get back over here!" he screeched. He couldn't see all the way to the end of the bridge from his angle but figured Sgt. Bryce and the others would be returning soon. Letofski, however, raised his hand in a "Quiet" motion as he stood up. The noise was unmistakable. At first he thought a bomb might have landed, but his suspicions were correct: their stomachs, especially the thinner boy's, were very audibly starving.

"Wait," Letofski said raising a hand to the hungry boys. They both gawked back, clearly having no grasp of English. Letofski nodded his head and kept his hand up as he backed away. He turned and dashed to the other side of the street where his pack lay. Lowell switched his focus back and forth between Letofski and the teens as his partner retrieved a ration box from that morning. Lowell was shocked Letofski still had it. Mihashi hastily swept up the ball, drawing Lowell's rifle again, before Abe gently sidestepped towards the barrels to regain some cover, where they could dash behind the berm and escape as soon as it was safe. Mihashi still hung close to Abe's chest and flinched, jittering strongly again when Letofski trotted and then walked and then creeped towards them, extending forth a small black box. The soldier muttered some stuff in English, carefully set the box on the ground, and stepped back cautiously.

Abe glared ahead, and Letofski could suddenly see the boy's expression for the first time changing from guardedness to perplexity. He tried to point at the box, telling them to take it, mumbling a few words they couldn't understand anyway. Abe kneeled down, bringing Mihashi with him. Mihashi observed his partner's face, suddenly guarded again, as he carefully guided Mihashi to rest behind him at the base of the hill before he slowly crept into the street. Abe stayed crouched and crawled forward on his toes. Letofski stared hopefully, Lowell incredulously. Abe took the box carefully with his hands, shot up in a moment, and turned and ran. Mihashi, the baseball pressed to his chest, watched Abe zip by him, then scrambled to his feet and scurried after him. As they disappeared beyond the hill, the sun finally upstaged the overcast sky.

"Feeding the locals, I see?" Sgt. Bryce immediately remarked. Letofski and Lowell jumped as Sgt. Bryce, Cpl. Samson, and Pvt. Husky glared from the bridge. Bryce was the least Japanese-friendly of the squad, having served since Tarawa in 1943. The Nebraska cornhusker also had a biting sense of humor, his most oft-repeated joke being: "Japs are the color of corn—just the way I like 'em."

Stunned for a moment, Letofski and then Lowell immediately stood at attention.

"No, sir!" Lowell barked.

"It seemed right, sir," Letofski said in contrast, making Lowell grimace. Sgt. Bryce cocked an eyebrow.

"And what are you gonna do when those baseball-loving brats come back for more?"

Letofski blinked. "Sir, did you see?"

"We saw everything ever since Private here turned around and spotted those two bozos spying on you from the barrels. Tell me, Pvt. Lowell. Were the Jap kids that nice on Okinawa?"

"No, sir," Lowell guiltily replied.

"You're lucky it was just a baseball, Private," he snapped at Letofski. Letofski gulped. The sergeant glared at him until he sighed. "If there were still a war going on, I'd be chewing out your ass and blowin' it up like bubblegum. But we can't fight forever." And with that, the tension seemed to dissipate. "So, Letofski," the sergeant continued, "I heard you brought some jerky with you. Care to share with the class?"

It wasn't a request, and Letofski hadn't told anyone he saved his ration to snack on later. The only way Bryce knew about it was if he caught him take it or dug through his pack. He suspected the latter.

"Yes, sir, but I already ate it, sir," he lied.

Bryce sneered. "Damn it. You gave it to those Japs, didn't you?"


	2. Chapter 2

By popular demand, here's chapter 2! Enjoy!

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A sea of overcast shielded the decrepit ballfield from the broiling summer sun. Mihashi rather liked it as he hustled a pitch across the diamond to his catcher in grubby, worn gear behind a brown-stained home plate. The ball weaved wildly until Abe barely caught it.

"Let's bat now," Abe called as he tossed the ball back. Abe routinely alternated batting and catching to preserve his grimy uniform and keep his hand-eye coordination up. The makeshift bat consisted of a two-inch diameter cylinder they salvaged from a collapsed house. After dropping his gear in the corner of the backstop, he trampled a green weed sprouting through the sand and took his position in a chalk-less batter's box.

Mihashi spun their mangled, cork sphere gently in his hand. Ever since last week's incident, the pitcher had dearly kept the ball at his side at all times, the last semblance of their past and their dream of Koshien. Both he and Abe wondered if there was ever a future at Koshien for them, but they neither voiced those fears to one another. Though neither wanted to admit it just yet though, increasingly it felt like their only future option would be to make a new life alongside their occupiers.

Mihashi jettisoned the ball. It ducked under Abe's bat and echoed a clang against the backstop. Abe skipped to collect the pitch, noticing its decaying, yarn stitches. In the old days, an endless supply of balls meant he'd never seen one this frail, the leather skin slowly fraying and exposing the cork. The worse for wear it got, the wilder the pitches got too in fact. Mihashi believed he was improving as a pitcher (which he most certainly was too), and Abe wasn't about to disillusion his batterymate. Staring at the ball, the daydream of a packed Koshien faded, and even the thought of onlookers occupying dewy grass around the small field in the hot sun was hard to visualize.

As Abe turned around, a silhouette hustled away from the berm near the third baseline separating the field from the road that led onto the omnipresent steel truss bridge beyond the backstop. Abe suspected it was the soldier that left them that pitiful excuse for food last week, although the teenage duo had gladly eaten it. Since then though, they had avoided further interaction, and Takaya hoped it stayed that way.

As he crouched in the box again, the figure that had scurried away peered around the berm once more.

* * *

"Looking out for the poor, Robin Hood?" Pvt. Husky cracked as Abe's bat clapped against the dying cork ball. Pvt. Letofski, discreetly glancing around the side of the berm, ignored the quip. One week later, he hadn't lived down the jokes about the jerky and figured he never would. On the ballfield he could make out the thinning but admirable figure of the batter, who usually played catcher with a crispy glove, swinging the ugliest excuse for a bat he'd ever seen. Still, the rehabilitated wood beam impressively did its job propelling the even uglier excuse for a baseball whenever it made contact. Letofski heard in the old days, teams would let balls get so worn eventually they would implode on impact, and this baseball looked about ready for heaven too.

"Well, well, if Commie Letofski ain't spying on the proletari-Japs," the grating voice of Sgt. Bryce spurted. Letofski spun to attention, his back to the nearby game of catch. Sgt. Bryce wryly eyed the private, checking in on him and Husky after a stroll across the bridge. The backstop rattled from another whiffed pitch, drawing a peek from Letofski. Bryce peered past his subordinate through the backstop as well. As Abe bent over to collect the ball, the corner of his eye glimpsed the curious Letofski and the displeased sergeant with arms crossed. Abe glared at the frowning sergeant.

"Hit it to Seattle?" Bryce barked at Abe. "You can't hit it to Tokyo!" He chuckled at his play-on-words on the little league chant. Whatever the guy who looked to be the Americans' boss had just said, Abe took it as a challenge but decided against taking the bait. He reached for the ball, maintaining eye contact with his foe.

"You want a piece of me?" Bryce coaxed. With no interest in entertaining the man who appeared to be verbally sniping him, Abe scooped up the ball and tossed it to his pitcher before skipping back to the batter's box.

Bryce grimaced at being snubbed by a Jap teen. The whole week, his Major League-starved horde regularly watched the daily, two-man ballgame yards away from them, despite Bryce's repeated threats of disciplinary action (threats he'd never follow through on because the matter was just so inane). Across the river, Bryce spotted Cpl. Samson and Pvt. Lowell mindlessly observing the battery at work even now. It seemed there was only one way to resolve this matter, Bryce felt, and that was to deal with that obnoxious catcher the old-fashioned way.

When he was 12, in Bryce's Nebraskan ranching town, there was a freckled German lad everyone called the greatest hitter ever. One day, Bryce grabbed a baseball bat, bumped the immigrant boy out of his place at batting practice, and jettisoned a ball farther than any of the older boys had ever seen. Since then, Bryce was convinced no foreigner could ever beat a yank at America's national pastime, and today he would prove that fact again.

"Husky," Bryce ordered, "bring Lowell and the Corporal here." Husky barked an affirmative and dashed across the bridge.

Mihashi prepared to launch another pitch when the looming figure of the portly, uniformed sergeant strutted around the backstop towards Abe. Abe tightened his grip on the bat as he backed out of the box, facing the approaching threat squarely. Letofski fearfully contemplated taking out his sergeant to protect the young lad but couldn't concoct a scenario wherein he wouldn't subsequently be shot by firing squad. Bryce, hands crisply behind back, halted atop home plate, glaring down at Abe. The towering sergeant stood a foot taller than the emaciated catcher as he silently presented an open palm to the teen. Takaya beheld the cracked, pale hand before realizing the American wanted his bat. As Mihashi quivered violently at the mound, Abe accepted that despite a week of peace, they would have to yield this patch of paradise to the conquerors.

Abe shoved the bat into Bryce's hand. Without comment, Bryce slung the object over his shoulder, cracked his neck, and crouched slightly as if readying for a pitch. Abe gaped at the batting stance that was clearly the work of an amateur. It seemed he had misjudged the interloper's intentions while Bryce grunted as if ordering Abe to catch a pitch. His eyes wide, Abe retrieved his mitt and set up behind the plate. Opposite, Mihashi gazed blankly at Takaya who nodded endearment.

Mihashi gulped. Around him the tinged grass, bowed metal, and smoking debris seemed to be replaced by glimmering walls, a packed stadium, and a certain iconic scoreboard to his rear. Mihashi inhaled deeply, quivering on the exhale, and pitched with his whole might.

The feverish baseball zoomed right down the middle much to the batter's delight. Bryce swung his bat fiercely with a devilish smile, fully convinced of his imminent triumph. As the bat flew round his body, the sarge scanned the horizon for the falling baseball, apparently jettisoned so far he couldn't even see where his home run would land. He prepared to let loose a raucous laugh when Abe popped up and tossed the baseball back to the mound. Letofski and Lowell snickered. They tried to stifle themselves before Bryce noticed, but the glare of their disgraced sergeant told them they hadn't succeeded. Finally the sergeant stomped away from home plate towards his subordinates with the bat. Abe suspected the dowel was gone forever until Bryce gruffly shoved it into Lowell's hands.

"Lowell, show those brats what an American can do," he commanded as if the last thirty seconds hadn't happened. A few chuckles escaped from Letofski, but he rapidly composed himself in response to a lethal glare from his boss.

While Abe snapped on the rest of his gear (somehow feeling this "game" was going to last awhile), Mihashi gazed fondly at the ball. The exhilaration of having a batter filled Mihashi with irrepressible joy but even more so was the fact Abe was giving him signs—a straight pitch to test the batter. He wanted more, Mihashi thought, and looking up to find a slimmer American now in the batter's box gave him his wish. He didn't notice another weave had popped loose from the baseball's threading.

In all of his time on the front, Pvt. Lowell never imagined he would spend an assignment playing poor man's baseball with two Jap teenagers, and yet here he was. Lowell watched the first pitch, an obvious strike, to get a feel for the pitcher who had gratuitously shown up his pompous sergeant. A second pitch zipped through the zone in the corner; Lowell couldn't help but think the off-speed throw's placement was intentional, a feat remarkable in itself. It reminded him of a Mexican boy in Cali who had good pitching prospects if only he learned English. Batting against him in unorganized youth play was always a blast, and standing here on this green-speckled swath with just a hint of sun glare peeking through made Lowell pine for simpler days —as well as pine to get back in the count.

Lowell swung on the next pitch, popping the defaced ball straight up. It hurtled toward short center field beside second base. Without infielders, Lowell grinned at his unstoppable hit, only to be flabbergasted when the ball vanished in a two-handed catch by Pvt. Letofski. Sgt. Bryce, whose cleanup-like obsession with reading Mihashi's pitches meant he hadn't noticed his ward's defection, wanted to order Letofski to jump off the bridge. Seeing his first infielder in months, Mihashi beamed ecstatically, unconcerned with the man's nationality. Caught up in the moment he screamed as he shot up one finger in the air and announced the first out.

"Wan auto!" Mihashi exclaimed. Abe grinned and echoed the cry playfully, even though they hadn't defined any rules to this unusual scrimmage. Letofski blinked dumbly at the battery who sounded like they were mispronouncing "one out." No one had told him that the Japs, for all their banzai charges and kamikazes, loved baseball. Caught up in the absurdity too, Letofski shot up one finger as well.

"One out!" he shyly declared in English. Abe and Mihashi jolted at the vaguely recognizable cry. Despite the language barrier, this was the first time either of them thought they understood what the English-speakers said. Abe couldn't help but smirk, thinking he liked Americans. It was then a highly perturbed Sgt. Bryce reoccupied the batter's box, reminding Abe there were also Americans he didn't like.

"All right, bring it!" Bryce cried. Abe flashed a sign for a slider, a pitch Bryce whiffed laughably. The second pitch bounced up into the backstop from the bat. A fastball came in on the third pitch without a swing and popped with an ugly noise in Abe's ratty glove. In a real game, it would have been strike three, but without an umpire Bryce was happy to disregard the count until he hit a pitch squarely. The proud catcher knew full well his pitch was in the zone and, even in this unregulated faceoff, wasn't going to be upstaged by an obstinate jerk. He grunted noisily with his glove floating in the exact position he had caught the ball. Bryce glared through the catcher's beat-up mask. He could win staring contests too, Bryce told himself, if that's what the cocky Jap teen wanted. Unfortunately Abe didn't look at all willing to give in.

"That's strike three! Get out of there!" Lowell screeched from the sidelines. Bryce flinched noticeably and fired a spiteful glance at his subordinate before hurling the bat into the ground and storming away.

"Two outs!" Letofski gleefully cried. Abe and Mihashi again jolted at the somewhat familiar sound.

"Tsuu auto!" they echoed, making Letofski beam. Perhaps, he heretically thought, Japs and Americans weren't so different after all.

Now with a chance to redeem himself, Lowell swayed nimbly in the batter's box, focused wholly on the young pitcher. Bryce positioned himself before the berm with folded arms and a peeved grimace. Pvt. Husky and Cpl. Samson peered around the berm to get a view of the game, hovering cautiously outside of the sergeant's peripherals. Samson at least made a point to position himself so he could see the sandbagged position across the road with a simple turn of the head, to at least pretend they were doing what they were supposed to.

The first pitch popped towards third base, out of Mihashi or Letofski's range, giving Lowell a base hit. Letofski dashed for the pitch anyway, prompting Lowell to break for second now that the bag was uncovered. Lowell cast a devilish grin towards his comrade after the victory, despite how manufactured it was.

Husky whispered a "yes" while reservedly pumping his fist, basking in his fellow soldier's success. Bryce cast a sidelong glance at the private who shrank back. Yet another one of his men was neglecting his duties, but Bryce didn't really care at this point.

"Husky, you're batting," he directed. Husky flinched and stammered onto the field, retrieving the bat from behind the batter's box.

After letting an obvious ball go, Husky popped up a pitch toward second. Letofski leapt for it, but the out-of-practice fielder missed it with his gloveless hands. Husky sprinted to first while Lowell made a break for third upon seeing his cohort miss the catch. Letofski grabbed the ball and instinctively readied for a throw to first, but Mihashi had forgotten to cover the bag, so there was nobody there. It was then Letofski spotted Abe booking it up the third baseline. Letofski flipped the ball to the catcher who caught it in his mitt, prompting Lowell to twirl back to second. Abe tossed the ball to Letofski who jumped towards Lowell, himself diving for the bag in a head-first slide. Mihashi had abandoned covering first as he inched closer to the collision, hovering anxiously as dust rose. When it settled, Letofski lay crossways atop Lowell, the latter with his hands on the grimy base. A mesmerized Mihashi suddenly spotted Abe's piercing eyes and flinched. It was then he noticed inquisitive gazes from Bryce and Husky off the field and even from Letofski and Lowell. This was a classic close play, and in lack of umpires, it appeared everybody wanted the call from the only person who had any decent angle on the play. As Abe strutted closer to him, Mihashi inhaled nervously and did his best to recall what he had just seen. And finally, convinced he had the answer, he anxiously mumbled something inaudible.

Everyone gawked at Ren's soundless call before a universal cry of "Huh?!" erupted, making Mihashi stumble. He gasped helplessly trying to verbalize the call again, before his voice finally echoed at the top of his lungs:

"Auto!"

Letofski jumped up with a cheer as Lowell ripped his helmet off and slammed it in the dirt. Coach Bryce sneered, ready to tear Lowell limb from limb for even trying to run. His mood changed though as he realized now he was up to bat. This should be three outs, but no one seemed to be keeping track. Husky had already abandoned first base too and now stood with Cpl. Samson, but Bryce marched back out to the plate for his next at-bat. From the box, Bryce eyed the opposing pitcher voraciously. After carefully observing the Jap for several at-bats, Bryce thought he finally had the teen figured out. Yes, he surmised, now it was time for his home run.

The first pitch came in a slider, a definite ball; Bryce held solid.

"Quit with the sliders, dang it," he grumbled. Abe detected the word " _suraidaa_ " and asked Mihashi for a curve as a test. Bryce held fast again. As Bryce eyed the pitcher intensely, he failed to notice Pvt. Lowell had taken up position as shortstop.

"Throw it straight, boy," Bryce grunted. One of those words Abe thought he recognized too: s _utoreeto_. Could it be the American wanted a fastball? He had held up on the moving pitches, so it made sense. Abe wondered if the cocksure batter still resented that first pitch and wanted redemption. Abe questioned if he should go along with that theory until he peered across at the mound and jolted.

Opposite him Mihashi daringly glared at his catcher, tightening his grip on the battered baseball behind his back. His eyes clearly told Abe he was ready for a monster pitch. Seeing his pitcher's confidence, Abe smirked and signed for a fastball. Mihashi nodded agreeably and straightened up. Bryce impatiently huffed as the ball shot out of Mihashi's grip, the fraying yarn weaves nicking the pitcher's fingertips.

Just as Mihashi wound up, Cpl. Samson took another haphazard glance at the sandbags. The color drained from his face instantly. Suddenly inspecting the unmanned position with vexation were two men in American uniform, one bespectacled man bearing the insignia of a lieutenant.

The pitch zoomed towards Bryce. Even though it really wasn't that fast from the side, yet behind the plate it looked something different. Now, however, Bryce had it figured out and swooped his bat at just the right moment. The cylinder contacted the leather-coated ball with a direct hit right in what would normally be the bat's sweet spot.

Samson immediately marched across the road towards the lieutenant and his adjutant. He had to alert his comrades somehow. And so, at the top of his lungs, he screamed out a proud greeting anyone across the bridge could hear: "Lt. Wallis! How great to see you!"

At home plate, the weaves of the baseball finally met their limit and snapped. The ball exploded as it bent around the bat, sending two halves of cork hurtling into the backstop. Around the field, Samson's panicked voice echoed as the soldiers flinched in fear. Bryce froze, oblivious to the outcome of his at-bat. Immediately he discarded the dowel and barked orders softly enough to not be heard over the berm, directing Husky to follow him and sending Lowell and Letofski around the far side of the hill. Abe and Mihashi gawked momentarily, having equally been stunned by the other American's frantic cry. As Bryce skipped hurriedly around the backstop, he took one last glance at his baseball foes who gazed at him dumbfounded.

"What are you waiting for? Get out of here!" he barked in his incomprehensible language and began mounting the berm mightily. Abe signaled to Mihashi, and both dashed across the outfield to the safety of the alleys.

* * *

Lt. Wallis, accompanied by an aide named Grayson, tugged the profusely sweating Cpl. Samson's collar immediately after his declarative cry.

"Jap snipers will have my head if you announce my rank like that!" he spat fiercely before releasing the corporal as if his remark was more for show. "Where's Sgt. Bryce?"

The sergeant instantly emerged triumphantly over the top of the berm, Pvt. Husky in tow. Both proudly saluted their superior.

"Lieutenant, sir," Bryce graciously began, "I am glad to report that we just chased off two hooligans eyeing the bridge. My other privates went chasing them to ensure they never come back." As if on cue, Lowell and Letofski emerged from the other end of the berm, marching up the road, rifles at the ready.

"Did you scare those brat saboteurs away?" Bryce inquired, simultaneously giving them the clues to play along.

"Yes, sir!" answered Letofski dutifully. "No chance they're ever coming back." Then, pretending to suddenly be aware of Lt. Wallis's presence, he instinctively saluted, prompting Lowell to do the same.

"At ease, men," commanded the lieutenant whose attention immediately spun to Bryce. Truth be told, this kind of proactive behavior was just what he wanted from any unit stationed on anti-sabotage duty. Indeed, Bryce and his team acted like the model squad—a fact that irked the lieutenant since there was no such thing as a "model squad."

"Well, I commend your actions," Wallis continued, "but please keep your men fully stationed on the bridge itself 24/7. You're all relieved." And he spun and departed with his adjutant, taking his doubts about the squad's sincerity with him.

Once the lieutenant was out of sight, the five men huddled together as the adrenaline pumped its way out of their blood. Everything that had just happened was as non-kosher as army-issued jerky, but they had one thing to admit: it was fun.

"Too bad about their baseball," Lowell finally mumbled, recalling the amputated sphere abandoned at the backstop. Everyone murmured agreement. Bryce smirked mischievously.

"What do you say we do something about that?" he grinned.

* * *

Abe blinked awake in a sheltered alleyway bombarded by a gleaming beam of sunlight. As he rolled over away from the irritating glare, he suddenly became aware that the normal weight against his body of Ren Mihashi was gone. With their only memento of their past destroyed, Abe expected Mihashi to be dejected, but his partner had fallen asleep quite peacefully last night. Even so, now Mihashi was gone.

Takaya snapped upright, finally spotting the pitcher peeking warily around the corner of the dead-end alley. The pitcher indicated cautiously down the connecting trail.

On the ground outside the alley appeared to be a piece of dried-up, putrid meat much like the kind the Americans ate. Then Abe spotted something even stranger: another piece of inedible meat, and then another—set out like breadcrumbs down the alley between the blocks. Every red flag went off in Abe's head, but before he could say anything, Mihashi was already conscientiously collecting the foodstuffs for later, forcing Abe to pursue.

The last jerky slice ended at the tip of the outfield of their baseball diamond. Abe squinted past drops of dew on revitalizing grass as his eyes adjusted to a surprisingly sunny morning.

Both boys jumped back when a spherical projectile crashed before them. Mihashi shivered as Abe warily beheld the dirty, white object, slowly awakening to what it was.

Cushioned by a patch of green grass lay a well-used but fairly sturdy baseball adorned with foreign manufacturing logos that Abe supposed to be transpacific. Strapped around the baseball was an elastic band choking a white sheet of paper with scraggly handwriting. Mihashi warily crept to Abe's side as the latter reached for the ball and tried to read the message. Although written in English, the pair felt an inviting comfort from the incomprehensible text:

"Let's play again."

* * *

And there you have it!

Thank you for the wonderful comments and response.


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